misericordia
by carpha
Summary: many people lost things during the Disaster. rouga was one of the few lucky enough to gain something at the same time.


_"_ _stay safe, rouga."_

 _"_ _mom, don't go-"_

his mom leaned down, pressing a soft kiss to his forehead. she ruffled his hair, then pulled away.

"mom has to go help people now, alright?" she said, a strained smile on her face. then, without hesitating any longer, she spun around and started running towards the coast, where the largest illegal monsters had been rampaging (and still were rampaging, if the screams were to be believed.)

he leapt forward to chase after her, but was held back by a rough hand wrapped around his wrist.

"dad- _why aren't you stopping her? she's going to die!"_ he screamed. his dad pulled him back, shaking his head.

"your mom took up her badge knowing that this might happen one day, rouga. if we stopped her now, she'd resent us for the rest of her life."

before either of them could say more, they were interrupted with a loud boom and the sound of monsters crashing through buildings.

his father stood up from the crouch he had been in, then started running with rouga away from the loudest of the monsters' roars.

rouga ran like the hounds of hell were nipping at his feet, and if he was unlucky enough, that could possibly be the case. with so many illegal monsters having attacked cho-tokyo, there was a decent chance that a cerberus could be in the vicinity, ready to rip him apart.

no one really knew _why_ so many monsters had decided to invade all of a sudden- they'd simply done so without any warning, flooding in by the thousands an hour before daybreak.

rouga's thoughts were interrupted when he heard a roar, one that was louder than any sound he'd ever heard in all of the years he'd existed.

his head swiveled towards the bay on pure instinct, and only his father's insistent tugging kept him from freezing in place at the sight of the massive hulking shadow slowly making its way to shore, waves rippling outwards from it with every flex of its muscles.

they ran and ran and ran. he could feel his heart pounding in his ears, but nothing, even the screams of those unfortunate enough to find themselves in the way of one of the monsters, could drown out the memory of that beast's roar. it echoed after him, spurring him to run faster and faster in the hopes of getting far enough away that he would be safe.

his throat was so dry but he refused to stop running for anything. even when he passed his father, even when his hand slipped from his grasp, even when he stopped hearing the sound of his father's footsteps beside him.

 _"_ _rouga-"_

he slowed down to turn a corner but stopped at the desperate tone in his father's voice. he spun around to see his father collapsed on the ground, one of his ankles in his hands, already looking purple and swollen.

he reached his arm out towards his dad, jolting forward just a bit and-

a scarred dragon crashed into one of the nearby buildings before flopping limply to the ground. beside it, the weakened building collapsed in on itself, thick slabs of concrete slamming to the ground.

he heard a sick _crunch_ as his father was crushed, a pool of red slowly growing from where a living human being used to be.

a scream tore its way out of rouga's throat.

"- _DAD!"_

he didn't even have time to mourn his loss, as he saw more and more monsters filtering in on the other side of the street.

he forced his frozen body to turn and run, even as tears streamed down from his eyes and stung his scraped up cheeks.

it seemed like his luck was about to run out though.

as he left the small back road he had been running through and entered an open plaza, he tripped over a misplaced brick and slammed face first into the ground.

by the time he recovered, a large shadow was looming over him. the beast grinned menacingly as it approached, fangs bared.

he scrunched his eyes closed. so this was it. he was going to die today, along with his dad (and most likely with his mom as well).

a few seconds passed, and rouga realized that he was still alive. he tentatively opened one eye, and was greeted with the image of a large three-headed dog ripping out the other beast's throat. its snow-white fur was stained by dirt and blood, and it turned to look him directly in the eye.

he flinched.

the cerberus softly padded up to him and licked the tears off of his face before lightly nuzzling him with its snout. "you're fine now. i promise."

rouga woke with a start, pressed up against cerberus's warm fur. one of their large paws was weighing him down to the cave floor, but it was one that was comforting rather than restricting.

one yellow eye opened.

"what's wrong, rouga?" they asked.

he tilted his head to look back at cerberus.

"just remembering how we met, that's all."

cerberus nodded slowly, before closing their eye and dragging their paw (and rouga with it) closer to their body.

warm and safe, with his buddy by his side, rouga fell asleep again.


End file.
